


Three Little Pigs

by Anarfea



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: BDSM, Breathplay, Canonical Character Death, Childhood Sexual Abuse, Consensual But Not Safe Or Sane, Dark Fairy Tale Elements, Incest, Multi, Not involving Jim I promise, Rape, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-19
Updated: 2018-03-26
Packaged: 2018-12-31 12:21:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12132402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anarfea/pseuds/Anarfea
Summary: Once upon a time, there were three little pigs. The eldest little piglet had a secret he hid from everyone. The middle little piglet hid a secret from himself which he needed to uncover. The littlest little piglet tried to tell her brothers a secret they couldn't hear. And the Big Bad Wolf let each of them whisper their secrets in his ear....





	1. Straw

**Author's Note:**

  * For [splix](https://archiveofourown.org/users/splix/gifts), [AllTheThings](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AllTheThings/gifts), [NaughtyPip](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NaughtyPip/gifts).



> This fic was written for Fandom Trumps Hate. Fivepipsandflowers won one slot and wanted Jimcroft. Splix Won another slot and wanted Euriarty. I owed AllTheThings a Sheriarty fic from a gift exchange which was an embarrassingly long time ago. I knew that I wanted these three prompts to fit together somehow, but I wasn’t sure what to do until my fellow antidiogenoid Whogrooveson suggested Jim fucking his way through the Holmes siblings like the Big Bad Wolf blowing through the Three Little Pigs. And then I had a frame story.
> 
> Anyway, this is one of the stranger things I’ve written, which my subscribers will know is saying something. I hope that you enjoy!
> 
> Thanks to my betas Vulgarweed and Iwantthatcoat

_Once upon a time, there was an old sow, who had given up her livelihood to care for her three children, only to discover she lacked enough to keep them. So she sent them out into the world to seek their fortune. Each of the piglets began making their way in the world by making themselves a house._

 

_First, the middle little piglet (who was rather stupider than the other two) chanced upon a farmer with a cart full of straw. He told the farmer, ‘give me this straw to build a house with.’ And the farmer gave it to him, and he built his house on white sand._

 

_And the wolf came to visit and brought his own straw, and he knocked at the door and asked “Little pig, little pig, may I come in?’_

 

_“Only if you can blow the door down,” sighed the little pig, “for I am far too tired to get up.”_

 

_So the wolf huffed, and he puffed, and he sucked the white sand through his straw, and then he blew--but this is not that kind of story._

 

* * *

 

The vein in the antecubital of his elbow kept rolling. Normally, Sherlock would have used the veins in between his fingers and toes, or even the more dangerous femoral vein, as he’d trashed the veins in his arms ages ago, but John wouldn’t see any track marks there. So the antecubital it was, and he supposed if he missed a few times that was all the better. He set his syringe and tourniquet next to the pills he was counting, pausing to jot a list on the back of his most recent takeaway receipt with a stub of pencil.

 

 

> 10mg Focalin (dexmethylphenidate)
> 
> 30mg Roxycodone (oxycodone hydrochloride)
> 
> 8mg Dilaudid (hydromorphone hydrochloride)

 

“What’s that then?” asked Wiggins.

Sherlock crushed the pills between two spoons. “I keep notes on everything I take. Got to document so I know where to adjust from next time.”

Wiggins peered over his shoulder. “That’s a speedball.”

“Technically, a ‘speedball’ is equal parts diamorphine and cocaine hydrochloride.”

“You know what I mean. You shouldn’t mix uppers and downers like that. It’s bad for your heart.”

_Go to hell, Sherlock._

“It’s even worse for my kidneys.”

Wiggins scrubbed at his face with the sleeve of his ragged jumper. “You’re gonna OD, Shezza.”

“I thought that’s what you were for.”

“I’m a minder, not a doctor.”

Sherlock chuckled, even though it wasn’t funny. Not at all. He dumped the ground up powder onto the kitchen table, then reached behind him for the junk drawer and rummaged through it until he found a razor blade. He preferred the quicker, intravenous high, but when he had access--or had access to Wiggins who had access--to actual pharmaceuticals, the softer sensation of insufflation was equally tempting. He cut the powder into lines.

“There, I’ll snort it. Will that make you happy?”

“It’s your septum,” muttered Wiggins.

Sherlock ignored him and pushed one of the drinking straws that had come with his takeaway through its paper wrapper with his thumb. He trimmed a two inch length off with the razor, then inserted it into his right nostril while covering his left. Wiggins eyes bored into the top of his head as he inhaled until his nostrils were aflame and his face went numb.

 

* * *

 

 

“So you did know my number.” He could hear Jim’s smirk through his phone.

“Eidetic memory. I only had to glance at it once to remember it.”

“And yet you didn’t delete it. It seems my underwear made an impression after all.”

“Or perhaps my subconscious knew something wasn’t right about you.”

“What else does your subconscious know, Sherlock?” Jim whispered in his ear. “What else does it want?”

 

_Molly’s gay boyfriend. Swimming pool. Shoes in 221C._

     Carl Powers

_Laser sights over John’s heart. Snipers in the balcony. John’s eyes on my forehead. More of them._

_Semtex can withstand a pistol shot. Shoot the detonator._

     Drowned

_Stayin’ Alive. Bee Gees. 104 beats per minute. Slightly slower than the ideal tempo for performing CPR, but still widely recommended._

     Redbeard

 

 

“It’s such a pity you only call me when you’re high….” Jim ran his fingers up the front of Sherlock’s coat, opening the buttons one by one. He paused to twine his fingers in his scarf.

“I have better sense than to call you when I’m sober.”

“Still,” Jim unlooped the cashmere and pulled the cloth free from his neck with a flourish. “At least take MDMA or something next time. You won't even feel half the delicious things I’m about to do to you.”

Sherlock shrugged out of the coat, letting it fall to the floor, then stepped forward and pressed against Jim, pelvis to pelvis.

Jim hissed and wrapped an arm around Sherlock’s waist, ground against him.

“Maybe--” Sherlock arched his back, baring his throat. “That’s the point.”

“Don’t tempt me.” Jim licked the hollow of his throat, let his teeth graze his Adam’s apple. “God I could just crush your trachea with my teeth. Tear into your carotid and fuck you while you bleed out.”

Sherlock chuckled to hide his shiver, knowing the deep vibration of his vocal folds against Jim’s lips would drive him wild. “You could. But you won’t.”

Jim bit him hard, as if to prove a point, sucking bruises into his neck--and it was a good thing he made a habit of wearing a scarf, because these marks would be so obvious Mycroft or his flunkies would be able to see them from CCTV.

Jim spun him around and pressed him against the wall. “Spread ‘em.”

He smiled into the wallpaper. “Are you going to frisk me?”

Jim unfastened Sherlock’s waistband and flies, yanking his trousers down over his hips.

“I’m going to eat you.” Jim bit the flesh of his left buttock before parting his cheeks. “Like the book says.”

 

 

“Play this for me.” Jim extended a violin in one hand and a bow in the other.

Sherlock ignored the bow and took the violin in his hands, tilting it so the afternoon light shone through the f-holes. _Joseph Guarnerius facit cremonae_ 1732\. I.H.S. “Is this a _del Gesù_?”

“It is indeed. What do you think?”

He turned it over in his fingers. Rich, dark spruce dotted with tiny, character-giving scars. The back a solid piece of maple flame. Adrenaline sang within him, so strongly he half-expected the violin to vibrate sympathetically.

“Is this--for me?”

“Course not, love, I’m fencing it.” Jim smiled. “You look lovely when you pout, though.”

Sherlock attempted to hide his flush by snatching the bow from Jim. He tucked the violin under his chin. “Any requests?”

“Scheherezade.”

 

 

“You always want me to play this one. Some orientalist fantasy of yours?”

“Well, we are smoking opium. It seemed appropriate.”

“I can’t even play it properly without an orchestra.”

Jim shrugged. “I can hear them. Can’t you?”

Sherlock closed his eyes. The opening deep low brass notes filled the room. He took a deep breath and sat back on Jim’s bed and waited for the entrance of the opening violin solo.

 

 

“No, no, stupid, not like that,” admonished Eurus.

Sherlock frowned until his forehead ached, willing his fingers to soften.

“That’s not how it works, don’t _think_ about it. If you try to relax you won’t.”

He closed his eyes.

“No, watch me,” Eurus commanded. “Like this, see?” She began a G major tonalization, vibrating continuously, without interrupting the oscillation of her hand to change fingers. “Keep the hand moving. You stop whenever you change fingers because you’re thinking too much. Your body knows what to do, just keep your mind out of the way.”

 

 

“Your body knows what to do,” Sebastian whispered. “Don’t overthink it.”

Sherlock closed his eyes and let Wilkes’s tongue invade his mouth. His blood buzzed with cocaine and his heart was pounding halfway out of his chest. He wrapped one hand behind Seb’s head, deepened the kiss.

Sebastian broke away from him. “That’s better.”

 

 

“Isn’t that better?” Eurus smiled.

He loved it when she smiled. It was worth it, practicing until there were black marks on his calloused fingers, if it made Eurus smile.

“Start again. No vibrato this time. Pure tone. Make sure you can hear the open strings ring every time you play an A or D on G. And use the whole bow. The frog isn’t going to bite you.”

 

 

Jim bit his lower lip until it swelled, then licked the spot along his jaw that made him breathless.

Sherlock arched and writhed. His skin itched, crying out for Jim’s touch, and he rolled his hips up, silently begging for Jim’s hand.

But Jim held his cuffed wrists above his head, pinning them to the bed, and continued to suck a bruise into the space just below his left earlobe.

After a few minutes of kissing and biting, Jim abruptly stopped and sat up, tugging on Sherlock’s cuffed hands and pulling him to the edge of the bed. Jim stood on the bed, which gave him the additional foot of height he needed to haul Sherlock’s cuffed wrists over his head and secure the chain between them to the steel suspension ring hanging from the ceiling in the middle of the room.

“Shortarse,” scoffed Sherlock.

Jim gripped his chin tightly and held it in place while he slapped him. “You will pay for that.”

Sherlock grinned. “I know.”

Jim looked Sherlock’s naked body up and down. “Maybe you have a point. About orientalist fantasy. I’d love to keep you for one thousand and one nights.”

“And make me tell you stories?”

Jim laughed. “No. Why would I do that? No, I’d make you solve puzzles. Or maybe, I’d make you dance. With little bells on your ankles.”

Sherlock snorted.

“But mostly,” Jim cupped his chin, “I like the idea of you sleeping next to me every night and not knowing if I’ll kill you in the morning.”

Sherlock tilted his lips up for a kiss.

 

Sherlock leaned into his cuffs as the tails of the flogger left bright trails of pain across his shoulders. Rubber falls, thin enough to cut, pure sting, and Jim landed blow after blow, wielding one in each hand, Florentine style, and his skin was on fire.

_Back a solid piece of maple flame._

“Sing for me,” Jim commanded.

He cried out when the next blow fell between his shoulders, and then again, when Jim moved to his legs, snapping the tails against the delicate skin at the tops of his naked thighs, already red from previous whipping.

“God, yes. You’re so beautiful like this. Take it.” He brought both tails down together, from high enough they whistled before striking the wide span of his back.

Tears welled in his eyes.

Jim stood behind him, his pleasure at Sherlock’s suffering evident in the hardness at the top of his left thigh, straining at the charcoal wool of his trousers.

He brought his fingers to Sherlock’s lips.

Sherlock opened for him, and then Jim’s fingers were inside, prying his lips wide, stroking his tongue, making him gag.

“I want to fuck you,” Jim whispered, rutting against his leg. “Take you until you scream.”

“Please.”

“Yes, beg me.”

He pulled at the cuffs, arching his back. “Please, Jim. Please.”

Jim pressed the wet head of his erection against Sherlock’s cleft, probing vertically, up and down over the length of his hole.

In vain, Sherlock tried to press back and was rewarded with a swat on each arse cheek.

“Hold still, or I won’t give it to you.”

He strained up onto his tiptoes, arched his back to ease Jim’s access, but Jim still didn’t fuck him, dropping instead to his knees and pressing his tongue into Sherlock’s arse.

_Eat you. Like the book says._

“Oh, fuck.”

Jim’s tongue, stabbing, warm and wet, inside him, flicking and wriggling until he squirmed, toes twisting, numb fingers clenching helplessly above his cuffs.

“Please, Jim,” he begged, not caring anymore how desperate he sounded. “Please, I can’t take much more of this. Give it to me. Please.”

Jim rose up off his knees, licking a path up Sherlock’s spine, making him spasm. He dug his fingers deep into Sherlock’s hips and pulled him back. “Arch your back.”

He struggled to obey, calf muscles shivering and twitching as he pushed higher onto his tiptoes and angled his hips back.

Behind him, the snap of the lid on a bottle of lubricant. Cold dripping down his cleft. Two of Jim’s fingers, thrusting and twisting inside him.

His vision blurred. Sparks danced over his eyes and prostate. His legs ached.

“Jim, I’m going to--”

The fingers withdrew. “Come if you want. But know I intend to fuck you until I do, and it’s going to be a lot more pleasant for you if you haven’t.”

Sherlock groaned.

Flesh on flesh. Jim’s hand, slicking himself. Fingers digging into his left side, a hand at the small of his back, pushing the arch deeper. Friction, heat, muscles resisting and then relaxing. One stroke, two, then three, and Sherlock came with a shout, cock jumping as he pulsed and pulsed in time with Jim’s strokes inside him.

Jim quickened his pace, riding him harder, faster. It burned. His cock continued to twitch and leak for a few seconds, then slowly flagged as Jim continued to take him, selfishly, viciously, and he was dragging it out just to be a prick, pulling all the way out and then thrusting in again for the pleasure of abusing Sherlock’s hole.

“Oh God.” He whimpered.

“Yes,” Jim hissed in his ear. He reached between Sherlock’s legs, cupped his bollocks, and squeezed, hard. “Say that again.”

Sherlock gritted his teeth to avoid giving Jim the satisfaction.

Jim squeezed harder, and then began to twist, slowly, until Sherlock hissed back. “Come on, Sherlock. Give me a squeal.” He pulled sharply, and Sherlock’s belly clenched and roiled. Another whimper.

“Yes, that’s better.” He clawed down Sherlock’s sides, leaving red tracks, then shifted to clawing the length of his arms, which had gone completely numb. He moaned.

“Hurts, doesn’t it? Tiptoe and I’ll bring you down.”

He rose higher, teetering as Jim unclasped the the chain joining the thick suspension cuffs to the steel ring hanging from the ceiling. He lowered his hands, still cuffed, in front of him, grimacing as the blood rushed back when Jim roughly massaged his forearms.

“All fours,” Jim demanded.

Sherlock lowered himself to elbows and knees, cuffed forearms outstretched in front of him.

Jim knelt behind him, grabbing a handful of Sherlock’s curls and _wrenching_ until he sobbed. He snapped into Sherlock brutally, scraping over his drained prostate, pulling his hair back with both hands as though his curls were reins.

Tears filled his eyes. Jim knew how sensitive his scalp was. He arched and twisted, only driving Jim’s cock deeper.

“Squeal for me. Tell me you’re my little fuck pig.”

“No. Fuck--”

Fire ringing his scalp where it lifted from his skull, fingernails clawing, fingers twisting in his hair.

A mewl escaped his throat, and that was dreadfully close to a squeal and he hated himself a bit for it. “Fuck--” Tears streamed from his eyes.

“Say it.”

“Pig. I’m your fuck pig.”

Jim, twitching inside him, slumping forward against his back. Newly released curls falling in his eyes. Warmth trickling down his right thigh. “Yes.” He patted Sherlock’s screaming scalp. “And such a good, obedient little piglet you are.”

 

 

Opium haze. Soft and golden over everything. Sherlock sucked the pipe and blew the smoke up, towards Jim, who coughed and batted it away.

“Don’t be so childish. You lost, fair and square, Sherlock.”

“Pet me.”

Jim smiled, equal parts sad and fond, and--gently-stroked his tender head.

Sherlock closed his eyes and extended the pipe upward.

Jim sucked. A long inhale.

_Until his nostrils were aflame and his face went numb._

A sigh as he breathed the smoke out. “I do love you, you know.”

He didn’t know what to say to that.

“I’m still going to kill you.” He stroked Sherlock’s hair again. “Maybe not in the morning--”

“You’re saving it up for something special.”

“Yes. We have to solve the problem, Sherlock.”

“Why? What problem?”

 

_I did tell you_

_I that am lost_

_Did you listen?_

_Oh, who will find me_

_Did you miss me?_

_Deep down_

_Down to the ground_

_Below the old beech tree?_

               Drowned

_To get out_

_Help Succor me now_

_Of the rain_

_The East Winds blow..._

               Redbeard

 

* * *

 

 

“‘Course I didn’t miss you.” Wiggins sniffed.

“What?” his head was a wasps’ nest--mud and paper, buzzing and filled with holes.

“You’ve been here this whole time. Not to mention moaning and mumbling so as I can’t even get any work done.”

“What work. There is no Work. Only Mary’s case.”

“You’re not making sense.”

“Neither are you,” he snapped.

Wiggins resumed measuring chemicals.

Sherlock’s throat demanded water, but his legs insisted it wasn’t worth walking to get it. “Bring me a glass of water.”

“Get your own damn glass.”

John would have gotten him a glass. He’d have railed at Sherlock for being a layabout, but he’d have gotten it all the same.

“Who’s Redbeard?” asked Wiggins.

“A dog I had once. Why?”

“You were muttering about him. That and the East Wind blowing, some nonsense.”

“That was a story my brother used to tell me. That the East Wind would come to pluck me away if I were unworthy.”

“Yeah, well he’s likely to come pluck you up and drop you off at rehab if you keep this up.”

“He won’t. Mycroft--understands. He doesn’t approve. But he knows what I’m trying to do.”

“Care to tell _me_ what you’re doing, Shezza?”

“It’s for a case.”

“You expect me to believe _that_ \--you’re still rolling.”

“I don’t care what you believe.”

 

_I believe in Sherlock Holmes._

_One more miracle, Sherlock, for me. Don’t ... be  ... dead. Would you do? Just for me. Just stop it. Stop this._

_Go to hell, Sherlock._

 

“What are you cooking, Billy?”


	2. Big Bad Wolf

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I've updated the tags. Please take a look at them before reading this chapter!

“Where did you come from? Where did the plane take off?”

“My Nan’s.”

“And where are you going?”

“Home.”

 

* * *

 

 

“Is that vibrato, or is your hand shaking?”

Eurus forced her hand into softness, fingers rounded, tightly rocking just beneath the pitch and up to it, keeping her touch light enough not to kill the vibration of the violin’s strings, speed even and without a hint of the tremor that ran through her spine whenever Grandad’s breathing shifted. It had changed when he’d corrected her posture, placing a hand between her shoulderblades so that she remembered to pull them down her back.

“Better,” said Grandad, close to her ear. He was still breathing in the strange way which made her skin prickle, and he hadn’t moved his hand, even though her shoulders were straight now. She shrugged and took a step forward.

“I hate Kreutzer.”

Grandad chuckled. “Yes, well, it’s good for your technique.”

“Yes, but I want to play real music.”

“What is ‘real music,’ Eurus?”

She scowled, then started the opening of the first violin part of _Death and the Maiden_.

Grandad gasped. “Who taught you that?” He was afraid. Grown ups were always afraid whenever she did things she shouldn’t be able to do.

“Mummy was listening to it on the radio.”

“Well, you did a very good job of it, for playing by ear. If you like, I’ll get the score and you can learn the rest of the piece.”

She’d already learnt it, transposing the cello and viola parts in order to play them on her eighth-size violin. She hated the timbre of it. It was shrill and tinny, no matter how hard she tried to control it, but it couldn’t be helped.

“Unfortunately, I don’t think there are any other children your age at your ability level. Certainly not your brothers.”

Eurus chewed her lip.

“Of course, you can always play with grown-ups.”

Eurus could hear the smile in his voice, even though he was standing behind her. There was a smug tone grown-ups always took whenever they made jokes they thought she couldn’t understand. Except she did understand. Grandad was talking about the other games that they played, except they weren’t really games. Eurus understood that, too.

“I want to play with Sherlock.”

“Of course you do,” said Grandad. “But I understand he’s more interested in playing pirate than violin these days.”

“Yes.”

“That’s too bad.”

It was.

“Are you still trying to teach him?”

Grandad had given up, said that Sherlock wasn’t mature enough. Not like Eurus.

“Yes.”

He chuckled. “You’re wasting your time. But perhaps it will make your own technique better, showing him by example. You’re so advanced already. I won’t be able to teach you more, soon.”

That was the point, of course. Of all the hours of practice. Begging Mummy and Daddy to buy her, if not a real violin, she knew there were no real violins in her size, at least a better student violin. To play too well for Grandad to teach. To touch. To breathe on. For Grandad to stop breathing on her. For Grandad to stop breathing at all.

 

* * *

 

 

“I baked your brother a gingerbread man.” Jim’s voice lilted into a sing song at the end. He flopped onto the sofa in the middle of the hotel suite, legs opening into a sprawl across the plush leather.

Eurus perched in the chair across from him. “Did you burn it?”

Jim grinned at her, baring his teeth. “To a crisp.”

She leaned back, crossing her legs. “And the Ambassador’s children?

“Are snug as bugs in rugs. In an abandoned warehouse with all the mercury-laced candy they can eat.”

Her lip quirked. That was clever. Moriarty wasn’t as smart as she, not by a long shot, but he had style.

“Tell me about Hansel and Gretel, Eurus.”

She narrowed her eyes.

“You could have picked any fairy tale, but you wanted to kidnap two children: a brother and sister.”

She shrugged. “The ambassador is Mycroft’s pet. I’m just killing two birds with one stone.”

“What do you hope Sherlock will find at the end of your trail of breadcrumbs, darling?”

 

_I that am lost_

_Oh, who will find me_

_Deep down_

_Down to the ground_

_Below the old beech tree?_

_To get out_

_Help Succor me now_

_Of the rain_

_The East Winds blow_

_Sixteen by six, brother, and under we go._

 

“Redbeard,” she whispered.

“No.” Jim shook his head. “It’s something darker than that.”

 

* * *

 

Nan had offered Eurus a night light, but night lights were for babies, and Eurus was not a baby. She lay on her back, and a weight lay on her chest. A narrow finger of light probed beneath the door, shining into the heavy darkness. It broadened into a beam, then a wedge, as the door opened on silent hinges. Her pulse quickened. She clenched her fists until her fingernails cut little crescents into the meat of her palms. She felt no pain. Even when she’d cut her wrist open in front of Mycroft, telling him she’d wanted to see--

Inside

\--how her muscles worked. She’d felt no pain. Only the warm trickle of blood, flowing down her forearm.

Dotting her thigh.

Mycroft had _told_. He said that he’d been worried she’d need stitches, but he’d been afraid, they were all afraid. Mummy had cried, asked Eurus why she’d want to hurt herself. What she’d really wanted to ask was why she wanted to kill herself, but Eurus didn’t, she _didn’t_ , she’d just wanted to take off her skin. And everyone looked at her with wide round eyes, especially Mummy, the stupid sow, bag of meat. She wouldn’t wake up. Mummy wake up wake up WAKE UP!

A hand clapped over her mouth. Eurus bit, teeth sinking deep. The hand recoiled, and then returned, slapping her left cheek. A whispered curse bit her ear. Eurus went still after that, in the dark. The weight returned, and with it the breath, warm and sour and too heavy and too fast. Eurus bit her lip, closed her eyes, and then she was falling, falling, out of her body, out of her bed, down through a field of clouds. She was in the sky, wind in her hair, rain on her cheeks, fog thick around her eyes, and she was falling, falling, falling.

 

* * *

 

“Victor!” Called Eurus.

He ignored her, swinging his toy sword through the drizzle while stomping in puddles.

“Redbeard!”

He looked up. A black patch covered his right eye.

“Come here!” She motioned towards the damp clay path separating them.

“But I’m s’posed to be hunting for Yellowbeard.”

Sherlock was down at the stream bed. Hiding in the bushes. Soaked to the skin and shivering, but grinning like a loon, his chubby cheeks pink.

“He was washed overboard,” said Victor. “In the storm.”

“He fell down here,” said Eurus. She gestured to the old well at the bottom of the path. She’d found it a month before. A ramshackle thing of mossy stones. The broken cover leaned against one side.

Victor’s brows knit.

“He’s in the water. We have to lower the rope down to him so he can climb up the side of the ship.”

There was no rope, nor any bucket, but Victor didn’t know that, couldn’t see that. He might as well have patches over both his eyes.

He approached the well slowly, sword in hand, peering over the edge. The well was just deep enough that shadow shrouded the bottom. “Yellowbeard?” He rose up onto his tippy-toes.

Eurus shoved him, hard, between the shoulder blades, and he toppled in.

 

* * *

 

_Redbeard was falling_

_Eurus was falling_

_London bridge was falling down, falling down, falling down…._

_To the ground_

_To get out_

_Of the rain_

 

_It’s not the fall that kills you Sherlock_

_It’s the landing_

 

* * *

 

Eurus chewed a strand of her hair while she debated whether or not to answer Jim. Finally, she said, “The little boy wrote ‘Help Us’ on the wall in linseed oil.”

He’d left a trail of glowing footprints down the hallway. If Eurus had been able to speak to him, to ask him, she couldn’t have gotten him to perform any better.

Jim sat up straighter on the sofa. His eyes were serious now, dark as empty wells. “What was Sherlock supposed to help with?”

Eurus let her voice go flat. “All Sherlock had to do was follow the trail down the hallway.”

Jim nodded, and there was a slight flaring of his nostrils, a softening of the empty eyes, and she could have killed him in that moment, tackled him to the ground and ripped his trachea out with her teeth.

He knew it, too. He met her gaze, cocking his head to one side and swiveling it to the other, daring her, and that was the Jim she knew. Her Jim. She stood up, crossed the sheepskin rug in front of the sofa, and backhanded him.

His jaw worked for a moment, and then he turned to face her, eyes glittering.

Eurus straddled his lap, sinking down, down.

Her mouth crashed into Jim’s.

 

* * *

 

Victor screamed and splashed into the water.


	3. Bough

_Then the eldest little pig (who was the porkiest of the piglets) chanced upon a farmer carrying boughs of holly to market. And he asked, “Please, sir, may I have these boughs to build a house with?” And the farmer gave them to him, but with them he gave a warning:_

 

_Boughs will break,_

_And your brother will fall._

_At day’s end, the East Wind_

_Comes for us all._

 

_But the porky piglet paid the farmer no mind. He built a house from the boughs of holly, hung a wreath of ivy upon the door._

_The wolf knocked the big brass knocker and asked, “Little pig, little pig, may I come in?”_

_“It’s Christmas,” said the porky piglet, “so you may come in if you’ve brought me a present--preferably something good to eat.”_

_“I have brought a figgy pudding,” said the wolf._

_“Then you may come in,” said the porky piglet, “and sit down for supper.”_

 

* * *

 

“Your sister, though.” Jim smirked at Mycroft, interlacing his fingers behind his head, leaning back in the chair opposite Mycroft’s desk and placing his feet upon it. “I almost wish you could have seen the chemistry we had, but then I guess, you not watching was rather the point of the deal. Anyway, she’s 10/10. Would bang. Pity about the glass. Maybe you can lower it the next time she’s due for a treat. When’s her birthday?”

“Alas, you just missed it. Twentieth of November.” Mycroft smiled. “However, she has been uncharacteristically helpful of late.”

She’d provided such a clever little solution to the Coventry Conundrum. An entire flight full of corpses. Morbid, as was Eurus’ style, but altogether elegant.

“I may very well consider asking her if she’d be amenable to the idea of a conjugal visit. Though you should be aware that she ate the tongue of a nurse who was unfortunate enough to have aroused Eurus’ sexual interest. The corpse was so badly mutilated as to require a closed-casket funeral.”

Jim pouted. “And here I was beginning to think you liked having me around. I’ve certainly kept your little brother from getting bored.”

“I seem to recall you nearly blew him up the last time you were together.”

“In my defense, I did tell him to back off. He didn’t listen.”

“Listening isn’t exactly his strong suit.”

“No. It’ll be the death of him, probably.”

“If you continue to make threats against my brother, I may have to reconsider letting you leave this island.”

“That wasn’t a threat. Merely an observation.”

Mycroft smiled. “Mine was a threat.”

Jim laughed. “Ooooh. Should I be frightened?”

“Only if you have any instinct for self-preservation.” Mycroft tilted his head, assessing. “Which you hardly seem to.”

“Oh, that. Let’s just say I don’t mind being knocked about a bit.”

“So I gathered.”

Jim moved in close, until he was in Mycroft’s space, breathing his air. “You never did tell me how you want me.”

_On your knees._

It would be so easy to say it. And he was confident Jim would do it, too. His eyes glittered, bright with challenge. The desire in them was plain.

What he said was, “Out of my sight.”

Jim pouted. “Mikey, I’m hurt.”

“I thought you liked that.”

 

* * *

 

“Tell me a story, Mycroft.” Jim looked out from the hollows that housed his eyes, dark against the stark white of his sweat-sheened skin, starkly illuminated by the lamps behind Mycroft’s shoulder.

Mycroft leaned back in his chair, crossing his legs in the numeral four position. “I know it’s cliche, but,” he smiled. “I’m the one asking the questions.”

“Yes….” Jim agreed, tilting his head. His cheek was livid with bruising, and his upper lip was split. “But I haven’t done a lot of answering. So, let’s tell each other stories instead. Much more fun.”

Mycroft sighed. “Very well. Once upon a time, there was a little boy called William Sherlock Scott Holmes, except he preferred that everyone call him ‘Yellowbeard.’”

Jim smiled. “I can see him now, running around with an eyepatch and a wooden sword. Did he hit you with it?”

“No. Sherlock was never a violent child.”

“Who was?”

 

“Sherlock.” Mycroft stared at the drawing of the hanged figure in naked horror. “Eurus, why would you draw this?”

She shrugged, twisting the end of her pigtail between two fingers as she drew flames licking up the sides of Sherlock’s rope-bound body. “Because Mummy and Daddy think I’m going to kill him.”

“This... isn’t going to dissuade them of that.”

“I know.”

“Are you planning to hurt Sherlock?”

“Only if he doesn’t follow the trail.”

“Eurus. We’ve been through this. Sherlock and I don’t understand the rhyme--”

“You’re too slow.”

“I know. I am. Please, you have to tell us.” He reached out for her, snatching her wrist. Anything to make her stop drawing.

Eurus stared at Mycroft’s fingers. “What are you going to do?”

Mycroft squeezed tighter.

“Are you going to break it?” asked Eurus. She sounded mildly curious. “My bones are thin. You could probably break the radius if you twisted hard enough.” She tilted her head. “Then again, maybe you don’t have the upper body strength. You could try breaking my fingers.”

Mycroft dropped Eurus’ arm as though it were hot. “I’m not going to hurt you, Eurus. Just tell us where Victor is.”

“You can't hurt me, Mycroft. And he's not _Victor_ anymore.”

He knew all too well what she meant. It was almost like Sherlock had forgotten his friend’s name. He'd spent the last three nights wailing--

“Redbeard.” Mycroft clasped Eurus’ shoulders. “Where is Redbeard?”

“Drowned Redbeard,” said Eurus with a smile. “He isn’t Redbeard anymore, either.”

 

“Who was the violent child?” asked Jim. “Surely not you. You haven’t the stomach for violence.”

Mycroft arched an eyebrow, then cocked his head in Jim’s direction. “The agents commenced beating Jim with renewed fervor.

Jim laughed. “Doesn’t count, Ice Man. Hit me yourself. I dare you.”

Mycroft ignored him, leaning back in his chair.

“See. Don’t want to get your hands dirty.”

“I seem to recall that was a preference we share.”

“Generally, yes. But I’d make an exception for you. Or for Sherlock.”

Mycroft held out his hand.

The beating stopped.

He stood slowly and advanced on Jim, grabbed a handful of his hair, and wrenched, tilting his head back, forcing his gaze upward.

Jim grimaced, but his eyes were glowing. “There you go. Maybe there’s blood instead of ice water in those veins, after all.”

Mycroft punched Jim hard in the solar plexus, noting with satisfaction the way Jim’s body doubled around his fist. The movement of the metal chair rattled the chains fastening it to the floor.

Jim coughed. “Again.”

“I think we’re done for today.”

He unclenched his fist, flexing his knuckles. He’d used good form. Nevertheless, his hand ached.

He nodded to the guards. “Continue. And don’t let him sleep ‘till I return.”

Then he turned his back to Jim, ignoring the eyes he felt crawling all over him, and walked through the cell door.

 

* * *

 

 

“What is this?” Mycroft glanced at the wrapped parcel Jim carried beneath his arm. It should be of greater concern to him that Jim had showed up on his doorstep, snow blowing around him. But he was curious.

“Christmas present,” answered Jim. “Are you going to let me in, baby? It's cold outside.”

Mycroft rolled his eyes but stepped aside, letting Jim pass through to the foyer.

Jim cleaned his Gucci brogues on the matt and removed his coat, handing it to Mycroft.

Mycroft hung it in the hall closet, then made his way to the parlor, Jim following. He took a seat in one of the chairs in front of the fire, then extended his hand for the box. “Should I call the bomb squad?”

Jim handed the present to him. “Don’t tell me you can’t deduce the contents.”

“Sherlock and I used to play that game. Deducing all our Christmas presents without opening them.” He turned the box over in his hands, then shook it. “Watch chain? That’s rather pedestrian.”

Jim’s lips curved into a smile.

“I’m assuming it’s stolen. You wouldn’t be grinning like that, otherwise.” He pulled the gold ribbon free with a tug and slit the cellotape with his thumbnail, peeled back the red paper. “Lack of branding on the box would support this hypothesis.”

The paper fell free with a crackle. He opened the latch on the ebony box, revealing an interior of blood red velvet. A length of heavy gold chain with an enormous black pearl fob drop lay on top. “The Borgia pearl.” He made certain to sound unimpressed. “You spoil me.”

“Put it on,” Jim breathed.

There was no way he could keep it, of course. But he supposed there was no harm in wearing it for a bit. He removed his pocket watch and unclasped the chain from the end, replacing it with the one Jim had given him. He slid the watch into his waistcoat pocket and passed the fob through the buttonhole, letting the fob drop fall single Albert style.

Jim watched him, eyes dark. “You know,” he mused, “usually when I meet someone I want to fuck,” he pushed the ‘k,’ “I think about how I can get them out of their clothes. But you….” he sank to his knees in front of Mycroft and looked up. “You I like when you’re fully dressed.”

Mycroft’s cock twitched. He ignored it in favor of pushing his thumb into Jim’s mouth. “You I like when you’re quiet.”

Jim smiled around the proffered digit and then sucked, flicking his tongue along the ball. Mycroft’s breath caught as Jim released his thumb and moved up his hand, tongue flicking over the delicate skin of his palm, then his wrist. Mycroft pulled back, grabbing Jim by the hair, and pushed his face into his groin.

Jim huffed a contented sigh against the wool, his hot breath further rousing the interest of Mycroft’s cock.

“Free me,” he demanded.

Jim laughed against him, but he obeyed, nimble fingers reaching for Mycroft’s waistband, undoing his button and flies and finding their way through the opening of his y-fronts. He wrapped his hand around Mycroft’s hardening length inside his trousers, then pulled him free, as instructed, rocking back on his heels to admire his handiwork.

“My, what a big cock you have.”

Mycroft snorted. “You should know by now flattery will get you nowhere.”

“I think I could just …” he licked his lips, “gobble you up.” Jim slid his hand to the base of Mycroft’s erection and tilted his head forward, mouthing the head, licking once around the rim and then--swallowed him.

Mycroft had received enthusiastic felatio before, but Jim took him in like a sacrament, pushing forward until his lips met Mycroft’s pubic mound and the outline of his cock distorted the shape of his throat. Mycroft grasped the short bristle at the crown of Jim’s head and held him there.

“Look at you,” he mused. “Such a proficient slut.”

For a moment, Jim’s eyes smoldered, and then he let them flutter closed.

Mycroft grasped the back of Jim’s neck and held him until his eyes watered, until he gagged and shivered. He jerked Jim’s head back, snapping the line of saliva connecting them and slapping Jim across the face. Then he pulled him back down until Jim’s nose met his pubic bone.

“Choke yourself until you black out.”

Jim met his eyes as he took Mycroft into his throat again. His gaze had that unfathomable black quality Mycroft remembered from the interrogation room. Mycroft knew with certainty that Jim, throat spasming around him, would stay until his limbs crumpled. He would do anything to feel something.

He took Jim’s nose between his thumb and forefinger and pinched. He didn’t thrust, just held him, cutting off his air, and Jim knelt, silent, taking it, taking him. Mycroft was as dizzy as Jim must be, drunk on the power Jim had handed him. Mycroft had played these kinds of games before, but they’d been just that--games. He would never have actually let a partner lose consciousness--had no desire to have someone stroke out on his parlor floor. But Jim was different. There were countless potential benefits which would result from Jim’s demise. Especially since he’d just spent five minutes talking with Eurus--about what, Mycroft didn’t want to imagine. Perhaps he should dispense with the sex and simply strangle him. It was entirely probable that Jim would allow that.

Jim lurched on his knees, and maybe, in some part of his animal hindbrain, there was some survival instinct in him after all. He found his fingers twining in Jim’s hair, and then he pulled him free, releasing his nostrils, and Jim gasped for air.

Mycroft laughed. “Look at you. You think there’s nothing you want more than death. Freedom. From boredom. From pain. And yet you can’t override a simple reflex.”

Jim looked up at him. Drool shone on his chin. “When did Sherlock try it?”

Mycroft dropped Jim’s hair.

“You thought about killing me. But you won’t, because I want it, and something in you can’t accept that.”

“Sherlock isn’t suicidal.”

“Bollocks.”

 

Sherlock’s skin was as waxy as the stub of candle which cast more shadow than light over it. Mycroft sank to his knees on the filthy floor. His brother curled towards him, twitching fitfully on the bare mattress. He moaned when Mycroft gently pried his fingers apart to extract the expected, folded paper. Mycroft opened it by the light of the nearby candle.

_I’m sorry_

Fear stole his breath, clogging his airway with sick, acrid heat. His fingers flew to Sherlock’s throat, palpating for a pulse, and it was there, but slow, too slow. He swept Sherlock into his arms.

“Sherlock. Please wake up.” He fought the urge to shake him.

His brother’s head lolled backward, limp and heavy.

Mycroft struggled to support Sherlock’s neck, cradling it in his arm. “Don’t. Please, Sherlock. Please, God.” _Wake up wake up WAKE UP!_

 

“You’re jealous.” Mycroft stared down his nose at Jim, still kneeling on the floor, one hand curled around Mycroft’s cock. “That’s why you want to kill Sherlock. Because he’s happy, in his own way. With his Work. His friends. You’ve built a criminal empire and surrounded yourself with adoring minions--”

“Empire?” Jim smirked. “Mikey, you flatter me.”

“But none of it _means_ anything. It’s just a distraction. This--” he gestured between them, “is a distraction.”

Jim nuzzled his groin. “But what a pleasant distraction.”

The window had closed. Whatever truth they’d been close to touching, Jim had pulled away, was now pulling off Mycroft with gusto, moving his mouth up and down along with his hand.

Truthfully, this was better than throat-fucking Jim, at least from a physical standpoint. Jim’s mouth was hot and wet and his fingers were clever, and if he kept flicking his tongue and thumb over Mycroft’s frenulum like that his orgasm wasn’t far off.

“Stroke yourself. I want to see you come.”

Jim pulled back, arching his eyebrows. “Truly?” He unfastened his trousers and freed his cock. “You’re going to let me come on your rug?”

“You’ll lick it up after.”

Jim moaned, then resumed sucking Mycroft, stroking himself with the same rhythm.

Mycroft didn’t make it easy for him, thrusting, scraping Jim’s tonsils and soft palette, pulling his hair. It didn’t feel quite as scrumptious as letting Jim service him, but he enjoyed using Jim’s mouth. More than he anticipated, because sooner than he would have wished, he felt his orgasm coiling in his toes, his sacrum. He grabbed Jim’s head with both hands, fucking his face in earnest as Jim furiously fucked his own fist.

“Come with me.”

Jim pulled, harder, faster, and Mycroft watched the white ropes spurt as his own climax tore upward through him. Jim dove down, made to swallow, but Mycroft pulled out and ejaculated over his face, his hair. He used his cock to smear semen over Jim’s lips as Jim blinked it out of his bloodshot eyes.

Mycroft sighed and stepped back, running his fingers through his sweat-damp hair. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed the head of his cock, then threw it to Jim, who wiped the worst of the mess from his hair and face.

Jim folded the soiled cloth into quarters and tucked it into his jacket with a flourish. “I shall treasure it always.” His tone was flip, but something in his eyes made Mycroft swallow his laughter.

He tucked his cock back into his trousers and zipped his flies, then slumped onto the sofa.

To his horror and fascination, Jim sank to all fours and proceeded to lick his ejaculate from the floor as Mycroft had commanded. He hadn’t seriously expected Jim would comply, and he suspected Jim knew it. Dominating him had lost some of its thrill since he’d had his orgasm, but it was still oddly satisfying to watch Jim carry out his instruction, lapping up come like a cat.

On impulse, Mycroft stretched out his legs and set his heels on Jim’s back. Jim stiffened, pausing momentarily, then dipped his head and finished cleaning the floor. Then he tucked his limbs underneath him and transformed into a rather comfortable footstool.

Mycroft let himself relax, feet rising and falling ever so slightly with Jim’s breath. The fire had burned down to embers, throwing off red heat and a pleasant glow. Snow flurried outside his windows. He picked up the drink he’d been nursing before Jim had knocked at his door and took another sip, the brandy warming his throat. His Christmas night had not been altogether unpleasant, even if he’d passed it somewhat unconventionally. He wondered what Sherlock might be doing. Having drinks with Mrs Hudson, John and whomever John’s flavor of the month was, most likely, playing carols on his violin to please the small crowd. Dreadful. He wasn’t the least bit sorry not to have been invited.

He lifted his feet off Jim’s back and patted the sofa beside him.

Jim made to get up, but Mycroft shook his head.

The shadow of a smile crossed Jim’s lips as he shuffled forward on his knees, sidling up against Mycroft’s leg. He lay his head on the sofa next to him.

Mycroft sipped his drink and stroked Jim’s hair, watching the fire die.

His phone rang. Sherlock’s ringtone. Something must have shown in his expression. Jim knew.

Mycroft stood up and walked away from the sofa, towards the window, before he answered. “Oh, dear Lord. We’re not going to have Christmas phone calls now, are we?” He did his best to feign annoyance, unsure if it was for Jim’s benefit or his own. “Have they passed a new law?”

“I think you’re going to find Irene Adler tonight.”

Well that was hardly news. His brother had just called to say Merry Christmas, then, and Mycroft had rebuffed him. “We already know where she is. As you were kind enough to point out, it hardly matters.”

“No, I mean you’re going to find her dead.” His brother hung up.

A trickle of fear ran down his spine as he realized he’d turned his back to Jim.

“The Adler bitch is dead.” Jim stood up, straightening his suit.

“Yes,” he pocketed his mobile before turning around. “Want to tell me about that?”

“She gave something to Sherlock she shouldn’t have. I swear, good help is impossible to find these days. You’d think a lesbian would be able to seduce a man without falling for him, but nooooo.”

“I should head to St. Bartholomew’s and meet my brother.”

“You should also probably go over to Baker Street and confiscate your brother’s stash. D’you know he keeps cocaine in his speakers?”

Mycroft did know, but he didn’t particularly want to think about how Jim did. The idea that he and his brother might now have a sex partner in common was more than a little disturbing.

“Still?” he sighed. “You think he’d learn that keeping decoy spots he expects me to find is just a waste of expensive intoxicants.”

“He does it for you, you know.”

Mycroft frowned.

“Oh, come on. It’s obvious. If Sherlock wanted to get high, he could go out into the city and buy drugs. It’s what I would do. Instead, he stashes them around his flat so that you can find them all and rest easier knowing that you have.”

It was obvious. And it had never occurred to him before this moment.

“Jesus, you really are blind. He loves you. More than his friends. Maybe not more than his pet--but I wager it’s closer than you think. All he wants is to make you proud. It’s pathetic.”

“Who did you want to make proud, Jim?”

He chuckled, darkly.

“Your father? The bomb maker? Do you think he would be?”

“Nah,” said Jim. “I’m better with explosives than he ever was. But I’m not doing it for the cause. Anyways, love, you’re deflecting. Trying to make this about me instead of your baby brother. Speaking of which, don’t you have to run along so you can pat him on the head and murmur platitudes?”

Mycroft grimaced.

“Really, I know he’s a sad sack, now. But he dodged a bullet with that woman. You should thank me.”

“So you did kill her.”

“Let’s just say I withdrew my protection the moment she gave away hers.”

“Was that the real reason? Or might it have been because you resent his affections for Miss Adler? You have no one to blame but yourself for that. You sent her to him.”

“Darling, I resent nothing. Sherlock will never feel more affection for anyone than me.”

“Affection, maybe grudging respect, but he’ll never _love_ you.”

“I don’t need him to love me. He is me.”

“No one is like you, Jim.”

Jim’s lips twisted at the backhanded compliment.

Mycroft made his way towards the door, waving his arm to indicate Jim should precede him.

“Is this your way of saying it’s time for me to go?”

“You were expecting I’d leave you in my home unattended?”

“I’d have waited up for you.”

“Yes.” Mycroft tilted his head, appraising. “I think you would have.”

“Doesn’t make you special, Mycroft. I just like a bit more aftercare.”

“Yes, well, unfortunately Miss Adler deprived us of the opportunity to cuddle.”

Jim stepped close, tilting his own head to mirror Mycroft. “I think you would have, too. If baby brother hadn’t called. I’m already a known cuddler, I told Big G I expect my bodyguards to have the stamina to keep up with me and some affection in the afterglow. But you, Ice Man... what would people say if they knew?”

Mycroft bent close to Jim and whispered in his ear, “No one will ever believe you.”

Jim’s eyes widened, and he chuckled.

“Come now,” Mycroft exited the parlor and made his way towards the foyer. “I’ll fetch you your coat.”


	4. Let Me In

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to Ariane de Vere for her transcripts. I used them for the text of Eurus' riddle song, and some of the dialogue.

Without your love, he’ll be gone before.

Save pity for strangers, show love the door.

My soul seek the shade of my willow’s bloom

Inside, brother mine--

Let Death make a room.

 

Yellowbeard sighted her on the horizon. A merchant vessel. Spanish colors. “Raise the Black!” he shouted.

“Aye, Captain,” said Redbeard.

A smart captain would surrender before the most feared pirates in the West Indies. And yet--she was fleeing.

“Hoist all the canvas!” ordered Yellowbeard. “If we get underway now we can catch her by nightfall.”

“Belay that order.”

Yellowbeard turned to face a pirate he’d never seen before. “You can’t belay my orders. I’m the Captain.”

“I’m Captain Blackbeard!”

“You can’t be Blackbeard! You’re a girl. Girls don’t even have beards.”

“You don’t have a beard either, Sherlock.”

“I do so!”

“Do not. You’re just pretending. I can pretend, too.”

“You can’t! We don’t want you.”

“You can’t have girls on a pirate ship,” agreed Redbeard. “It’s bad luck.”

“I’ll show you bad luck,” hissed Eurus, and whirled on her heel, ponytails bouncing as she stomped away.

The sky darkened, and the waves kicked up. He turned to his Mate. “Mister Redbeard, perhaps we should lower the topgallant. There’s a storm coming.”

 

* * *

 

Sherlock’s first glimpse of the sister he couldn’t remember was of her back. She was playing a melody he didn’t recognize, most likely of her own composition, sad and haunting. The lights snapped on with an audible click as he stepped forward. Eurus froze, then began playing “Go Tell Aunt Rhody.”

 

With the song came visions. Water. Wading in his wellies. Sloshing through the stream. Redbeard running alongside him, his fur dripping wet.

 

Go tell Aunt Rhody

The old grey goose is dead

She died in the millpond

     Drowned

Standing on her head

     Redbeard

 

“Did you bring it?” asked Eurus.

Sherlock blinked. “I’m sorry?”

“My hairband. Did you bring it like I asked?”

“I’m not one of the….” did she think he was an orderly? “I don’t work here.”

“My special hairband.”

“I’m not one of your doctors.”

“The one I made you _steal_ ,” there was an edge in the word, “from Mummy.” She turned around slowly. “It was the last thing I said to you, remember, the day they took me away.”

“No.” Because that wasn’t true, it wasn’t, there was one thing he was sure he remembered.

“No?”

 

“Your life is not your own. Keep your hands off it, do you hear me?” Sherlock staggered down the stairs. The rain dripped down his collar as he crossed the threshold. “Off it.” He said again. “Off it.”

“Sorry? What?” Faith turned back to him. Her shoulders were hunched; she still feigned ignorance. “What are you talking about?”

He’d finally caught up with his brain just in time to realize he’d been about to let a self-harming, despairing woman walk alone into the rain with a gun. So he’d loaned her Mrs Hudson’s coat, and they’d walked to the chippy in the pouring rain and eaten their free portions in the shelter of a bus stop.

She’d said “Amazing” when he’d explained to her how he’d deduced the end of her relationship and her love of cooking from the note, and then, knowing he’d assume she was referring deductions--“I meant the chips.” Hearing a suicidal woman crack a joke had made him smile.

 

Now, he stared into Eurus’ pale face, wondering if any of it had been real. ‘Faith,’ of course, had been another of Eurus’ disguises, calculated to make him doubt himself, believe he’d hallucinated her in his drug-fueled haze. But they’d walked arm in arm until the rain had stopped. They’d told Mycroft to fuck off; she’d spotted the helicopter and the cameras following them and had said, “Big Brother is watching.”

Mycroft was her big brother, too. And he’d controlled Eurus far more tightly than he had Sherlock, for most of her life. She had to have enjoyed thumbing her nose at him a little bit, hadn’t she? They’d had a moment of real, human connection, hadn’t they?

“Does this mean you didn’t bring my hairband?” asked Eurus.

“How did you manage to get out of this place?” he demanded. “How did you do that?”

She kept the same, flat expression. “Easy.”

 

* * *

 

 

“You, look over there,” said Sally. “Look everywhere. Okay, spread out, please.” She waved her hand, pointing down one of the aisles of the abandoned sweets factory. “Spread out.”

 

“Fan out!” called Daddy. The grown-ups set out along the stream, torches bobbing as they walked, cutting through the deep grey of twilight.

“Victor!” his mother’s voice was high and thin. “Vic-tor!”

“Sherlock, please,” said Mycroft. “When is the last you remember seeing him?”

“He fell overboard. Eurus said.”

Mycroft pressed his lips together in that way which meant he was cross but trying not to show it. “Eurus--” he knelt down in order to look Sherlock in the eye. “Sherlock, that didn’t really happen. You were just pretending. When is the last time you remember seeing Victor for real?”

 

Sherlock picked up the wrapper, feeling the cellophane crinkle in his fingers. “Hansel and Gretel.” The two greedy children who ate the Witch’s gingerbread house.

He raised the wrapper into the light of his torch, peering closer. A whiff of chocolate reached his nostrils. He sniffed. And something else. He touched the tip of his tongue to the residue. Metallic. Bitter.

“Mercury.”

 

“Eurus,” said Mummy, smoothing her fringe. “Honey, you’re not in trouble. You just have to tell us whatever you know about where Victor is.”

But Eurus only sang that terrible song again, pulling away from mummy to swoosh her toy aeroplane through the air. “I that am lost, oh, who will find me, deep down below the old beech tree?”

Mummy sucked in a tight breath. “Eurus, we’ve already explained. No more riddles and games. Just tell us what happened to Victor.”

She giggled. “I already told Sherlock. He fell overboard and drowned.” She lifted the plane over her head, making a buzzing sound. “ _Drowned_ Redbeard.”

 

“Now, remember,” said Lestrade, “she’s in shock and she’s just seven years old, so anything you can do to--”

“Not be myself,” Sherlock interrupted.

“Yeah. Might be helpful.”

He adjusted the collar of his coat, folding it down so that he wouldn’t look like Dracula, or Batman, or whatever manner of villain would pop into the mind of a small child. He stepped into Lestrade’s office. The ambassador’s daughter sat at a table, hands folded in her lap, strands of her long brown hair hanging in her face. A female police officer sat beside her, stroking her arm and glaring at Sherlock.

He bent down to speak to her. “Claudette, I--”

Claudette looked up at him and screamed.

 

“I already _told_ you,” Eurus snapped. “Redbeard drowned.”

“But he’s a great swimmer! He out-swam a shark once!” Sherlock protested.

“Yes, but even Redbeard got tired after hours and hours. The ocean is big, and you weren’t there to throw him a rope, Sherlock.” She screamed it into his face. “YOU WEREN’T THERE!”

Sherlock covered his ears and screamed back, a single, long wail.

Eurus frowned. “Why are you laughing?”

 

* * *

 

Even though there was only one round in it, the gun felt heavy in his hand. Sherlock adjusted his grip, aiming it at the door.

“You have to choose,” said Eurus over the television. “Family or friend. Mycroft or John Watson.” Sherlock turned to face them. There was no choice, no question, and Eurus knew it. Sherlock could no more kill John Watson than he could stop his own heart from beating. Jim Moriarty had known that.

 

“I will burn you. I will burn _the heart_ out of you.” Jim had snarled it at him. Because they’d both known, no matter how many times they’d lain in each other’s arms, it was John Watson who was his heart, had his heart. Always. Even if John didn’t want it.

 

But Mycroft--Mycroft would die for him. He’d always known that. And he’d always hated it, because he’d never understood, until--

 

“This is my fault.” Mycroft turned to face him, having buttoned his top button and smoothed his hair in preparation to meet his end with equal parts drama and dignity.

And it _was_. Mycroft had spent years looking after and cleaning up after him, all the while lying to him about one of the most crucial and formative moments in his life. Mycroft’s martyrdom was born of guilt and Sherlock had always known it without understanding what exactly Mycroft felt guilty _for_. Now he knew. And Mycroft knew he knew and was willingly offering up his life as recompense for his failures.

 

Sherlock took a deep breath, and tilted the gun upwards, nestling the muzzle under his chin. “Ten …”

 

“Here we are at last--you and me, Sherlock, and our problem: The Final Problem.” Jim held his phone in his palm. The tinny beat of the Bee Gees continued to pulse in his hand. 104 beats per minute. “Stayin’ alive! It’s so boring, isn’t it?” He silenced the phone with his thumb.

 

“No, no, Sherlock,” gasped Eurus.

“Nine …”

 

Jim scrubbed at his face with his hands. “All my life I’ve been searching for distractions. You were the best distraction and now I don’t even have you. Because I’ve beaten you. And you know what? In the end it was easy.”

 

“Eight …”

“You can’t!”

 

“It was easy. Now I’ve got to go back to playing with the ordinary people. And it turns out you’re ordinary, just like all of them.” Jim let his face fall into his hands, telegraphing his despair.

 

“Seven …”

“You don’t know about Redbeard yet!”

 

“You can have me arrested. You can torture me. You can do anything you like with me. But nothing’s gonna prevent them from pulling the trigger. Your only three friends in the world will die ... unless ….”

“Unless I kill myself. Complete your story.”

Jim smiled. “You’ve gotta admit that’s sexier.”

 

“Six …”

“Sherlock!”

 

“This is how I win, Sherlock.” Jim spun on the rooftop, coat swirling around him, arms in the air.

Sherlock took a step forward. The winter sun warmed his shoulders.

Jim stopped spinning in front of him. “You kill yourself to save your pet and your brother. Not even that. For all you know, Eurus will kill them both. Given what happened to Big G and his wife, it’s likely. The only thing you’re doing is saving yourself having to pull the trigger.”

“You saw this. All of this.”

“I knew you wouldn’t jump. You’re a coward. You flirt with death, but you’ve never committed to it. You let Mary take your appointment in Samarra. Let’s just say this was insurance.”

“Why do you want me to die, Jim?”

He blinked. “I just want the company. Why do _you_ want you to die, Sherlock?”

“I don’t. Want to die.”

“Maybe Culverton Smith believed that, but I don’t. You’ve got no one, Sherlock. Mary’s dead. John doesn’t love you. Mycroft’s disappointed in you. They’re both of them just… waiting for you to chicken out. Shoot yourself.”

 

“Five …”

“Sherlock, stop that at once!”

A sharp pain in the back of his neck.

 

Sherlock chuckled. “No. You’re wrong.”

Jim scowled. “What’d I miss.”

The laughter was bubbling out of him now.

“What’d I miss!”

“You underestimated my sister.”

 

“Four …”

A dart between his numb fingers.

 

Sherlock took Jim’s face in his hands, looked into his eyes, liquid brown and infinitely sad. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I wish I’d met you sooner, that we’d…. If only I’d found out you’d killed Carl Powers when you were still a child. When there was still hope.”

“There was never any hope,” said Jim.

“I know you think that. I know that’s why you--took your life. You didn’t just take it from you. You took it from me. From us.”

“There is no us.”

“There could have been.”

 

“Three ….”

The room spinning.

“Two …”

The pistol slipping from his hand.

 

“She was never going to let you win, Jim.” He kissed him lightly on the forehead. “That would be taking my life from her, as well as John, and Mycroft. Molly. Mrs. Hudson. Lestrade. Your death is something that happens to everyone else.”

Jim’s brows knit. “I just wanted us to be together.”

“I know.” Sherlock cupped Jim’s nape. Bits of blood and brain stuck to his fingers. “So did I.”

 

* * *

 

“Eurus….” Sherlock stroked her long hair, cradled her face in his hand. “Help me save John Watson.”

“But you didn’t solve the puzzle,” she whispered.

“I did. Eurus, I’m here. In your room. You need to help me now. Please.”

She lifted her head, teary eyes looking through him, unseeing. “Why?”

 

_Because your friends will die if you don’t._

 

I am lost

Help me brother

 

“The boy sleeps there every night,” Sherlock gestured towards the hallway, “gazing at the only light source outside in the corridor. He’d recognise every shape, every outline, the silhouette of everyone who came to the door.”

 

Save My Life

Before my Doom

 

Footsteps in the hallway. Tiptoeing, to make a minimum of noise, but audible to Sherlock’s keen ears. A shadow on Eurus’ door.

 

I am Lost

Without your love

 

A clicking lock. A muffled scream. He hid his head under his pillow.

 

Save My soul

seek my room

 

“Someone came into your room. You wanted me to stop them.”

Eurus closed her eyes.

“Uncle Rudy?” he asked.

She shook her head.

“Grandad. You said it and I missed it. The plane took off from Nan’s.”

“Mummy won’t wake up.”

“I know. She didn’t. I didn’t. I’m sorry. I was afraid. I thought it was a nightmare. All of us slept when we should have been helping you and I’m sorry. Eurus, I’m sorry. But you have to help me. John is running out of time.”

She looked up. “He’s in the well.”

“I know, but where is it?”

“I pushed him in.”

“Where is the well, Eurus?”

She bent her lips to his ear, and whispered.


	5. Brick

_ The littlest pig was also the cleverest. Or at least, she thought herself so. As she chanced upon a farmer pulling a wagon filled with brick, she killed him in the road and took the bricks to build a house for herself. _

_ But the littlest pig was not so clever as she imagined, for she built her walls of brick so high and so strong that she made a prison for herself, and there was no way for her to get out. _

_ The wolf, chancing by, said, “Little pig, little pig, since you cannot come out, surely then you will let me come in?” _

_ But the littlest piglet was stubborn, and said: “Not by the hair on your chinny-chin-chin.” _

_ And the wolf knew that the littlest piglet had sealed the door from the inside and could not open it, but she would never admit to it. _

_ So the wolf huffed and he puffed, and he huffed and he puffed, but try as he might he couldn’t blow the house down. _

_ “You should try burning it down,” said the littlest piglet. “That’s what I would do.” _

_ “But that would burn you to a crisp,” said the wolf. “And I only meant to roast you.” _

_ And the littlest piglet laughed and laughed and rolled on her back with her hooves in the air. “Why don’t you come down the chimney?” _

_ And the wolf knew that the littlest piglet had an iron pot beneath the chimney and above her fire, and that she meant to cook him in it. But still he climbed onto the roof with his big wolf paws, and down the brick chimney he went. _

 

* * *

 

Jim Moriarty.

His eyes were open wounds above his wry smile, black holes sucking all light into their nothingness.

Eurus moved close to the glass and inhaled--the stale, recirculated air of her cell, the cool silica between them, and beyond it, blood, on his breath, on his hands, running down his cheeks from beneath those black eyes.

He sniffed the air too, scenting the ozone crackling between them, the musk pooling wherever their bodies were warm and damp.

She let her own eyes lock on his, stared into those wells while opening her own, laying bare the bones beneath the water.

_ Know me. _

He took another breath, moving with her, her mirror, her shadow, his reflection flickering on the glass like water, turquoise dotted with gold, a swimming pool lit from below.

_ I know. _

 

* * *

 

“Musgrave Hall,” announced Eurus with a sweep of her hand, tromping through the dry grass towards the burnt out shell of the building. Ashes rained from the sky, catching in the long waves of her hair like flakes of snow, gray on iron.

Jim stepped behind her, placed his hand on her shoulder. “You burnt it down.”

“To the ground.”

_ “To get out. Of the rain.”  _ Sherlock and Victor ran singing between the headstones, wooden swords aloft. Sherlock held his bicorn hat with one hand and scraped the top of the queer headstones that Uncle Rudy had placed in the cemetery with the other. The headstones she’d used as the basis for her riddle.

“The ants go marching two by two,” mused Jim. “Not three by three.”

She watched the figures run away, until they disappeared over a hill. The song faded as they disappeared from view. “Sherlock never wanted to play with me.”

“Sherlock’s been playing with  _ me  _ since he found Carl Powers’ shoes.”

“Sherlock plays with you. But he’s not your friend. You always wanted that, a friend. It bothers you that my brother has friends and you don’t. You want to make him kill himself to save them.”

“You never had a friend, either. And it bothers you so much you want to make one of your brothers kill the other.”

“I don’t want to  _ make  _ Sherlock do anything. I want to see what he’ll do.”

“You want him to chose you-u,” Jim’s voice lilted into a sing-song at the last syllable. “Family over friend. Blood over water. Mycroft over John.” He smiled, swiveling his head from side to side. “But he won’t.”

“You think he’s going to kill Mycroft.”

“I think he knows he can’t live without John. He might think he can live without Mycroft. And god knows nothing would give Mycroft greater pleasure than dying for Sherlock. But it will eat Sherly alive if he does it. The guilt. If he kills Mycroft, he’ll follow him soon after, you know that.”

Eurus chewed her lip. She didn’t want Sherlock to die. Not really. Not if he solved the mystery. Mycroft could die, though. Mycroft had killed for her; Mycroft could die for her. She didn’t know if Sherlock would actually go through with it, but even if he didn’t, even if Sherlock only considered it, it would break Mycroft, to see how little he meant to the person who’d meant so much to him. He’d fall to pieces, like ash, like snow, and Eurus would catch the flakes of him on her tongue as they fell from the sky. 

 

* * *

 

Eurus sucked Jim’s tongue, then bit until the copper tang of blood touched her palette.

He hissed in a breath, digging his fingernails into the flesh between her ribs, but he didn’t stop. She ground into his lap, hiking her skirt up her thighs. He was only half hard.

She broke the kiss. “You don’t really want me. You want my brother.”

His fingers tangled in her hair. He pulled, hard, making her arch her neck. “I do. You do, too. ‘Cept you want the other one.”

She smiled.

“Oh, I  _ get  _ it.” He bit the side of her neck. “It’s not like you’d see anyone else even halfway clever, since he keeps you locked away. Very Hades and Persephone. Bit predictable, really. I’m not quite sure why Mycroft’s so convinced you can’t be analyzed. I personally prefer Sherly, but Myc has his appeal. He’s all buttoned up, and you just want to peel back all the layers and see what’s underneath.” He unbuttoned Eurus’ blouse for emphasis. “Suit jacket, waistcoat, sleeve garters--”

“Skin, fat, muscle--” Her hands curled like claws into the plackets on either side of his shirt. Buttons flew everywhere as she tore it off. “Flay his whole ribcage open.”

Jim unfastened her front-clasp bra and grabbed her breasts, pulling her nipples with forefingers and thumbs. “Is that what you did to the nurse?”

“Maybe.”

“Did you want to fight?” He pushed her hard, sending her sprawling backwards onto the floor.

The deep pile of the sheepskin somewhat blunted the impact of her shoulders against the floor. She scrambled up to her elbows as Jim pounced, both hands tightening around her throat. He pushed her knees apart with his.

“Fight me. Fight me like you didn’t fight him.”

She snarled, hammered Jim with both her fists, raining blows on his head, his chest.

He tightened his grip on her throat and knelt on her thighs, leaving bruises.

Eurus tore his hair, clawed his face--she wanted to gouge out his eyes but didn’t--settled for leaving bloody scratches down his cheeks.

He eased his grip on her throat. “Do you want to win? Or do you want to lose?”

“Fuck me,” she demanded. “If you can.”

“You think you can stop me?” He grabbed her wrists, peeled her hands away from his face and pinned them above her head.

She writhed under him, and yes, he was hard now. She managed to get her thighs out from under his knees.

He plunged a hand between her legs, hooking two fingers under her soaked knickers and plunging them inside her, grinding the heel of his hand against her clit and pinning her to the ground.

“Did he take you like this? Did you bleed the first time?”

Eurus screamed.

“Yes!” He curled his fingers inside her. “Scream. Don’t lie there like a scared little girl and take it.”

Her legs shook. She struggled, thrashing under his hand, but she ground against it, too, arching up as his fingers pumped in and out, two giving way to three.

After several vicious thrusts, he pulled his hand free and straddled her hips, pressing her down with his body weight while freeing his cock.

Eurus kicked her knees up behind Jim’s thighs. She hooked one ankle over Jim’s, trapping his leg, and thrust the other hip up, rolling them both over and landing on top of him. She punched him in the nose, bloodying it. “Stop it!” she yelled. “Stop touching me!” She climbed onto his chest, crawling forward until she sat on his face. “Stop breathing on me.” She ground her cunt down over his nose and mouth. “Stop breathing at all.”

Jim pressed his tongue up inside her, pushed his chin against her folds, and let her ride him. When Eurus knelt up to give him air, he grasped her hips firmly, fingers digging into her flesh, and pulled her back down. She moaned, rocking against him, pulling his hair hard with both hands. Her orgasm started in her curled toes, then crept up her calves. By the time it reached her thighs, Jim had gone limp beneath her, and she finished against his face without any participation on his part. 

She dismounted clumsily onto the rug, pausing to catch her own breath before turning to Jim. She knelt between his legs and lifted them onto her shoulders, redirecting the blood back to his head. He blinked awake, and looked at her with a crooked smile.

“Was that as good for you as it was for me?”

“Better,” said Eurus. She dropped his legs to the ground and lay between them, taking his softened cock into her mouth.  
She sucked him until he was hard, then stroked him with her hand. Too fast, too hard, too much teeth--her inexperience was showing, and she knew it, but Jim bucked and cursed and hissed all the same. She pulled back when she felt his cock pulsing--she’d swallowed the first time and had no desire to taste him again.

Jim came in hot spurts, painting his own belly and Eurus’ breasts.

After, they lay together on the sheepskin rug, sticky with Jim’s come and both their sweat.

“You’re wrong, you know, about Mycroft,” said Eurus.

“Hmmmm?”

“I don’t have Stockholm Syndrome. I just want to tear him apart.”

“Because he didn’t protect you?”

“Because he’s been drooling over Sherlock since he was fifteen.”

Jim arched an eyebrow. “Since who was fifteen?”

“Sherlock. Mycroft’s not  _ quite  _ so depraved as Grandad. Still a hypocrite.”

Jim stroked her hair, but stayed silent.

“You don’t believe me.” She propped herself up on her elbow to look at him. “Is it so hard for you to accept that the only reason he fucked you was because you were the next best thing to his baby brother?”

“Mycroft cares for Sherlock more than is healthy, it’s true. But I think perhaps you’re….”

“Projecting?”

“That. Yes.”

“Fuck off, Jim.”

He sighed. “Mycroft is afraid of you. Too afraid to love you. And you’ve always known that he loved Sherlock, but not you, so you looked for an explanation. Because of what you’ve been through, this one made a sort of sense. But it’s not…. It’s not true, Eurus.”

“I couldn’t care less that you banged my brothers. But you seem to think it meant something. That  _ you  _ meant something to them. You didn’t. You couldn’t. After Redbeard, no one ever came between Mycroft and Sherlock, even John will never--Sherlock won’t chose him. And no one will ever mean anything to Mycroft but Sherlock, certainly not you. But when I tell you the truth, you can’t accept it. Are you jealous? Or merely squeamish about incest? Either way, I’m not the one who’s projecting.”

“Poor Eurus. You’ve never known familial love, so you can’t see it when it’s directed at someone else.”

Eurus laghed. “And you have? Trust me, the bomb maker and the station master never loved you.”

“Perhaps not. But Sherlock loves me. He may not know it, but he does, and it will hit him hard when I’m gone. He doesn’t even  _ remember  _ you.”

“He will,” snapped Eurus. “He’ll remember me, and Redbeard.” He’d remember her, and he’d love her enough to bring her home. He had to. He’d seen her scars, and he’d said that no lover could have seen them and not done something. Sherlock Holmes was kind, and smarter than he was when he’d been five. He’d solve the riddle this time. He must.

“Poor little piglet,” mused Jim. “You built the walls of your house too tall, and now you’re up, high in the sky, and you can’t come down without Sherly to show you the way.”

“This is coming from a man who wants to kill himself but can’t do it without Sherlock holding his hand.”

Jim smoothed her hair back from his face. “Look at us both.”

“We can’t both get what we want, you know. If Sherlock dies for you, he can’t be there for me. Looks like you’ll have to die alone”

But Jim just smiled at her. “Eurus, darling. Everyone dies alone.”


	6. Blow Your House Down

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for staying subscribed. I know it's been a long wait, but I hope the ending satisfies.

The quiet when Mycroft came to was so absolute he could hear the blood sloshing inside his skull. Whatever Eurus’ minions had put on that dart, it squeezed his temples like an iron band. He squinted against the hot white light beating on him from above, burning his retinas. Eurus’ cell.

He rolled onto his side, then curled to a seated position, eyes darting to the corner where the corpse of the Governor lay crumpled. This was not the room in which he had died. Still, Mycroft saw red dripping down the glass--except there was no glass. The sign hung suspended in the air:

MAINTAIN DISTANCE OF

THREE FEET

_Touch the glass, and I’ll show you the truth._

She could have killed Sherlock then. She might be killing Sherlock now.

Stacks of drawings, Musgrave Hall on fire, a gravestone reading ‘RIP Sherlock’. His brother--drowned, dismembered, flesh burnt away--it was all too much. Mycroft waved his hand, dismissing the intrusive images, then pinched the bridge of his nose, willing away the ache behind his eyes.

It was then that he saw the gun. Behind the Governor--David’s--corpse. He’d avoided looking at it too closely. On instinct, he stood, seized it from the pool of blood around the body. So very much blood, even though it had been moved--

_I will not have blood on my hands._

They were red now. They’d been red before. Red with blood since he was thirteen years old.

_All of this is my fault._

He’d meant it. It had seemed--monstrous, cruel, inhuman, for Sherlock to be forced to kill him--but also entirely just that he should be the one to die.

_Your own brother, and you babbled about his entire life to that maniac._

Five minutes. Letting the two people in the world who posed the greatest danger to his brother spend a single second together had been a betrayal. And yet he’d done it. Because he’d valued Eurus’ insights above Sherlock’s safety. Because she’d been so helpful, so clever.

_I’m beginning to think you’re not._

He tracked blood over the floor, pacing, one hand in what was left of his hair and the other curled around the gun which Sherlock had aimed at his heart. The gun a man Mycroft had casually threatened to kill had used to kill himself.

_If I find any indication my sister has left this island at any time, I swear to you, you will not._

Tempting as it was to place it beneath his own chin--he could still see Sherlock counting down, down--he would not. If his brother lived (he would live, he _must_ live)--he would need him. Mycroft would not let him down only to escape a few moments--hours, days, of well-deserved anguish.

He whirled towards the sign--ELEPHANT GLASS--and fired. Shards flew everywhere, glittering bright fragments of the Devil’s mirror, falling to the ground like snow.

_There, little sister. I will not play your games anymore._

He threw the empty gun to the floor, where it struck the concrete with a resounding clatter.

He closed his eyes. The light burned through his eyelids, searing red into his retinas. How must it have been for Eurus, to be in the light, all the time, and still have a darkness inside her that no light could touch?

The hum of the drone pulled his eyes open. It meandered through the open doors, across the glass-spattered floor and through the wall that was no longer there, coming to rest on the concrete slab which served as Eurus’ table. The light atop the DX-707 blinked as the device armed, then burned with the indifference of an exit sign. Mycroft swallowed.

He had accepted this fate once before. When he’d thought he would be meeting it with Sherlock.

_You were great._

He had known Sherlock wasn’t referring to his Lady Bracknell. He also knew the truth: that he was a rubbish big brother.

It wasn’t a matter of pulling the trigger now. He needed only to move, and he would be incapable of doing further harm to Sherlock.

_The East Wind comes for us all in the end._

He’d told Sherlock that. And he’d been right. But he could not move. He stood, still as an ice sculpture, eyes fixed on the object perched atop the table--a faceted steel pomegranate with a bright red crowned stem. Eurus had called them Hades and Persephone, once. It had disturbed him more than almost anything she’d ever said.

Mycroft was not a god. Nor was he the Ice Man. The persona he’d worked so hard to craft was melting. And now he would burn. But first he would fight. He would stay as still as he could, as long as he could, for Sherlock.

 

* * *

 

Sherlock looked up from the Operation board, carefully extracting the Wish Bone with tweezers. He glared at Mycroft. “Stop thinking about it.”

“I cannot,” said Mycroft. It was all he’d been able to think of since the orderlies dragged Sherlock away.

 _I spent hours in a cell with the body of a man who died because of my negligence--a man I threatened to kill, though of course I didn’t anticipate the words would prove prophetic when I did. I paced the floor of that cell not knowing if you were alive, whether I’d ever see you again, if I’d have to tell our parents that the daughter I’d told them was dead killed their favorite son, and that it was my fault. Again_.

“Think quietly, then.”

Mycroft snorted. Then he picked up the tweezers and went for the Bread Basket, opening himself to Sherlock, waiting for him to make a quip about his weight or his diet.

Instead, Sherlock said, “I meant it. What I said in front of them. That you did your best.”

The buzzer sounded.

Mycroft dropped the Bread Basket back into place. “Bollocks.” After a moment, he added. “I did my worst.”

“Hardly. The worst thing you ever did was steal all my firecrackers and set them off without me when I was six.”

“Gracious, Sherlock. That was one of my better saves.”

“I wanted to wear them in my hair like Blackbeard.” His expression darkened suddenly.

“What?”

“Eurus wanted to be Blackbeard. When she asked to play.”

“You’re remembering.”

“Everything.”

Mycroft handed the tweezers to Sherlock.

Sherlock looked intently at the game board, avoiding Mycroft’s eyes. “I remember being five, and staying across the hall from Eurus at Grandad and Nan’s.”

Mycroft took a cautious sip of tea.

“I remember hearing footsteps. Seeing a shadow move across her door. Sometimes I think I heard her muffled scream.”

Mycroft winced, then set his tea down. “It wasn’t your fault. You were five. You couldn’t have been expected to stop him.”

“What about you? When did you find out?”

“Not until after Uncle Rudy sent her away. It was one of the things the psychiatrists at the first hospital said. That she’d been abused. Uncle Rudy always said that she was lying, manipulating the doctors, but I never doubted her. Near the end of his life, he confessed to having believed her, too.”

“What did you do about it?” asked Sherlock, extracting the Adam’s Apple.

Mycroft blinked, surprised that Eurus hadn’t told him. “I killed him.”

“Elaborate,” said Sherlock, and passed him the tweezers.

 

Mycroft’s hands shook as he emptied the powder from the multivitamin capsules into the garbage. Then he used the empty capsule halves to scoop the one of his own making. Primarily, it consisted of Naproxen. He’d bought the biggest bottle they had at the chemist’s. For good measure, he’d added in the ground contents of the water pills one of Mummy’s well meaning ‘friends’ had given her with the suggestion that she ‘slip them into your boy Mikey’s food. He’s so chubby.’

After he put the multivitamin bottle back in its place in the kitchen, Mycroft fled to the bathroom and threw up. It would take more than one bottle. He’d have to do this again. And again. Until the drugs interacted with Grandad’s antihypertensives and--

 

“He died of renal failure,” said Sherlock. “I remember the funeral. Uncle Rudy gave the eulogy.”

“That he did.” Mycroft successfully extracted the Bread Basket this time.

“Did he know?”

“We never spoke of it, but I am certain he did. And I think he was … proud of me. He thought it meant that I would do whatever needed to be done to protect my family, and I suppose he was right.”

“Eurus knew.”

 

“Poor Mycroft,” said Eurus. She moved close to the glass, eyes locking with his. “You were so afraid. So alone. Committing a murder at thirteen. You couldn’t even cry, you were so sick with fear. The anxiety is why you finally started losing weight.”

Mycroft held her gaze but kept his expression blank.

“I know it’s been ten years, but I think it would make you feel better if you cried about it, now. Don’t you think?” She smiled fractionally, and inclined her head the smallest bit. “If you like, we can cry about it together.”

“That’s not going to work on me, Eurus.”

She snarled, twisting the false, sympathetic expression. “I should have been the one to kill him. Squeezed his throat until his eyes bulged out, until he _stopped breathing_. Instead you poisoned him like a coward.”

“I did it for you.” And for Sherlock. Since Eurus had left, Grandad had shown interest in teaching him violin again.

“You’re a fucking hypocrite, Mycroft. You did it for yourself. So you could pretend you helped. If you’d cared for me at all, you would have told Uncle Rudy!” She slammed her hand against the glass, squishing her palm and fingertips into broad white pads.

Mycroft suppressed a flinch. “Uncle Rudy knows. I’m afraid in this case the truth won’t set you free, Eurus. You still murdered Victor Trevor. You killed other children at the first facility when you burned it down. You threatened _Sherlock_.”

She bared her teeth. “It’s only the last that really upsets you. And we both know it.”

 

“She knew,” Mycroft agreed. “She wasn’t exactly appreciative.”

“I can’t imagine she would be. I--” Sherlock glanced intently at the Adam’s Apple. “I haven’t always been. As appreciative as I ought to have been.”

Mycroft stared, half-expecting to wake up in Eurus’ cell again. “Well,” he deadpanned, “I never murdered anyone for you.”

“No. You couldn’t. I think I understand now, why.”

“You could have.”

“Yes.”

“You murdered Magnussen. For John.”

“For Mary.”

“Even though she shot you. I must say, while it grieved me to see you grieve for her, I did not mourn her death. I could never find it within myself to forgive her as you did.”

Sherlock shrugged. “She understood me.”

He licked his lips. “I also cannot find it in me to forgive Eurus, as you have.”

“I understood her.”

“Yes. You’ve been so understanding of late.”

Sherlock’s brow furrowed. “Is this about me defending you in front of our parents?”

_You were always the grown-up._

“This is about your experiments in radical empathy being detrimental to your wellbeing.”

He pushed aside the security footage from Culverton Smith’s mortuary, of John Watson kicking his fallen brother until two of his ribs cracked while Sherlock insisted ‘he’s entitled.’

“You’re still afraid of her.”

“I’m afraid of you. You have no limits. No sense of self-preservation.”

“That’s rich, considering you would have let me kill you.”

“I didn’t exactly volunteer.”

“No. But you would have let me. Gone out in a blaze of altruistic glory. Do you have any idea what it would have done to me, after?”

He couldn’t think about it. “Killing John would have distressed you more.”

“And that’s how you thought I would make my calculation. Based on which of your deaths would distress _me_ more. You think I’m that selfish.”

Mycroft swallowed. “John has a daughter.”

“‘Think of the children,’ Mycroft? Don’t fucking patronize me. You thought I could murder you. You thought I _would_ murder you. What have I done to make you think me capable of that?”

Sherlock lowering his arm. The barrel gleaming in the fluorescent light.

“You pointed a gun at my heart.”

“I put on a show for Eurus.”

“You were considering it.”

“Yes, I considered it. I considered every possibility.”

“Do you think I relish knowing there was a possibility you would kill me? That I somehow longed to die by your hand?”

“Yes.”

Mycroft recoiled.

“Yes, I think you have thought of me as the agent of your eventual undoing for a very long time. I think you accepted this, and yes, courted your end just as I have mine. And let me tell you, it has not been easy, knowing you view me as your doom.”

Mycroft pursed his lips. Sherlock was his weakness. His pressure point. He had always known that. And yes, he’d accepted that the day might come when one of his enemies would use Sherlock to pressure him. But he hadn’t _wanted_ that. Certainly he hadn’t wanted to die and leave Sherlock with no one to look after him.

“That isn’t true. Whatever I did that gave you that impression, I am sorry.”

“You’re sorry. You’re sorry for everything. You slink around like a kicked puppy and it is aberrant, it is disconcerting, it isn’t _right_ and you need to stop it. Now.” The vehemence of his brother’s tone startled him.

“I’m--”

Sherlock slammed his fist against the table. The Operation pieces bounced in the board.

Mycroft flinched.

“You think I would hit you.”

“I distinctly recall you twisting my arm behind me and pinning me against a doorframe.”

Sherlock grimaced. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

“You were high.”

“That’s not an excuse and both of us know it.”

Mycroft arched an eyebrow. “Are we taking accountability now? Is this a therapy thing?”

Sherlock lifted his chin. “Problem?”

“No. Of course not. Why would it be?”

“Because if I pull myself into some semblance of a functioning adult I won’t need you.”

“A wise idea, since I’ve proved myself unreliable.”

“You’re deflecting. Admit it, you enjoy being Big Brother, in every sense of the word. Nothing gives you more satisfaction than swooping in after I’ve botched something and fixing everything. If I don’t need that anymore, it’s unclear what your role in my life will be.”

“I thought I was your archenemy.”

“You know that hasn’t been true for a long time.”

“Sherlock. I…. It has always been up to you. Whatever you want.”

The softness of Sherlock’s gaze flayed him open. “I want my brother back.”

Mycroft met Sherlock’s eyes. “I’ve always been here. I’ll always be here. For you.”

 

* * *

 

Their parents declared Sherlock’s visits with Eurus an unmitigated success. He had reached beyond the wall of her silence and found a way for her to communicate without speaking. He could touch her, in a way no one else had, in a way that let her reach back without lashing out.

Mycroft was unconvinced. Eurus was a sunning viper, torpid from cold but still deadly, biding its time. After the helicopter had taken Mummy and Dad and Sherlock away, Mycroft returned to Eurus’ cell. Not in any kind of official capacity. He’d surrendered those duties to Lady Smallwood. But he felt compelled to speak to Eurus, even though he knew she wouldn’t answer. She was seated at her table now, staring at her hands, palms down in front of her. She didn’t look up when he entered her cell.

Mycroft paced alongside the glass. He would kill for a cigarette. He wished Eurus would look at him. It was strange, confessing to her back. “I’m sorry,” he said at last. “I’m sorry I didn’t see what Grandad was doing to you. I’m sorry I didn’t tell the truth once I knew what he’d done to you. I thought it didn’t matter because Uncle Rudy wouldn’t have let you out. I thought that was what you wanted. But you could have gotten out years ago and you stayed. You wanted to be heard. And not just by anyone. By me. By Sherlock.”

Eurus hummed ‘Go Tell Aunt Rhody.’

_I who am lost_

_Oh who will find me_

_Deep down below_

_The old beech tree._

Mycroft cleared his throat. “‘I am lost. Help me brother. Save my life before my doom. I am lost without your love. Save my soul. Seek my room.’ The riddle was never about how to find Victor Trevor. He was just… incentive. To solve it.”

Eurus stood up from the concrete bench and turned to face the glass.

“Sherlock was five,” he said. “A child. A _frightened_ child. He did not fail you.”

She stepped closer.

“I failed you. Uncle Rudy failed you. Our parents failed you. But not Sherlock.”

Eurus took another careful step, right palm outstretched. She pressed it firmly against the glass, fingers splayed.

_Touch the glass and I’ll show you the truth._

Mycroft stepped close, heartbeat irrationally fast in his throat. He could see the glass, see the pressure of her palm against it. He placed his own against its outline. “You have his love,” he said. “I cannot fathom why. You murdered his first best friend. And he forgives you. You almost murdered his new best friend. And he forgives you. But know this. If you harm him. I will never, ever forgive you.”

Eurus met his gaze and smiled.

 

* * *

 

 

_Now the Big Bad Wolf leapt down the chimney, and plop! He landed in the pot of scalding water which the littlest little piglet had placed over the fire. The littlest piglet snapped on the lid, covering the pot just as she had covered a well so many years ago. And the poor wolf was trapped inside and boiled alive._

_The middle little piglet and the porky piglet left their unstable houses to find their littlest sister. And together they reached her house of brick which had no door. “Little sis, little sis,” they cried together, “let us come in!”_

_“I cannot,” she wailed, “Not by the hair of the Wolf’s chinny-chin, which is even now boiling away in my pot so I can eat him for supper.”_

_The elder brothers looked at each other. And then they huffed, and they puffed, and they huffed, and they puffed, but the two of them together could not blow the house down._

_At last the middle little piglet said, “I shall go down the chimney like the Big Bad Wolf did.”_

_“No, you mustn’t!” shouted the porky piglet. “If you do, you will fall into the pot of scalding water and our sister will gobble you up!”_

_But the middle little piglet paid his brother no mind. He climbed onto the roof, and the porky piglet watched in horror as he straddled the chimney._

_“No!” called the littlest piglet, looking up the chimney at her brother. “No, no you mustn’t!” And she pulled the pot from the hearth. Then she huffed and she puffed, and she huffed, and she puffed, and she blew out the fire._

_And the middle little piglet jumped down the chimney and landed on his little cloven hooves, his snout curved into a smug grin. “I knew you would never eat me,” he told his little sister._

_Now that the danger had passed, the porky piglet also climbed onto the roof, and he too bounded down the chimney, rather less gracefully than his brother and the wolf._

_And the three little piglets sat down at the table and ate the Big Bad Wolf for supper. And it tasted every bit as nasty as you can imagine._

 

* * *

 

 

Mycroft’s hands glided over the the ivory keys of the antique piano. The low, rolling chords of the intro to Shostakovich’s _Preludium_. To his right, Eurus lifted her pigtailed head, locking eyes with Sherlock, and the two of them breathed together before beginning. Slow parallel thirds. Such somber music coming from such tiny violins, such serious expressions on such chubby faces.

Mycroft accompanied. But he was outside the tight bubble of their intimacy, keeping the beat beneath their entwined melody and harmony. Eurus lead, Sherlock followed, and Mycroft watched.

 

Now, Eurus was in her own bubble. Behind glass. Sherlock and Mycroft were together on the other side, and yet Sherlock reached across, playing in counterpoint to Eurus, while Mycroft sat quietly and simply listened as they improvised together. A piano part played in his head, low bass notes grounding the violins, but of course it would be utterly impractical to bring a piano to Sherrinford. Still, he drummed his fingers on his leg, silently playing chords with his right hand, and Eurus watched, listening with her eyes. It was as close as he could come to Sherlock’s unconditional forgiveness. Mycroft didn’t trust her and probably never would. But neither did he hate her.

Mummy glanced at Mycroft’s drumming fingertips and smiled, squeezing his thigh. Mycroft’s stomach clenched. This hadn’t been for her. This had been for Eurus, watching with too-knowing eyes, and for Sherlock, who watched the reflection of Mycroft’s hand in the Elephant Glass.

Eurus and Sherlock locked eyes and began a new song. _Preludium._ Two violins dancing together. And the piano below, keeping the beat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the curious, here's a link to Dmitri Shostakovich's [Five Pieces for 2 Violins and Piano](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6rKjFr7lso). The _Preludium_ is the first.


End file.
